DVD Review: Dynasty - The Fourth Season, Volume One - Page 3

When this plot line was revealed to the cast the previous season, Jeff Corley walked off of the show halfway through, and Jack Coleman was hired to fill in for him. Steven was almost killed in an oil rig explosion to explain away the difference in the two actor’s physical appearances.

After a year of playing “gay for pay,” straight actor Jack Coleman was increasingly accused of secretly being gay himself. With his male ego being threatened, Coleman intimated he’d leave the show unless Steven miraculously turned straight. With that and the additional pressure from the religious fanatics, the producers cooked up a plotline where Steven sees the error of his ways and marries Claudia Blaisdel (Pamela Bellwood) straight out of her sanitarium. Incredibly, but not surprisingly considering the times, the judge is instantly convinced that Steven is now completely morally straight and allows him to retain custody of little Danny.

Blake too is immediately certain that his son is now acceptably heterosexual and allows him to move back into the mansion with his new wife. The family warms to their patriarch for his compassion, but actually it’s a way of easing back into their affections after they all turned on him by testifying on Steven’s behalf during the custody hearing. Steven has always been an honest, straightforward man on the show, but flabbergasted fans began to wonder if he had merely used Claudia to keep his son, but as scenes of him making love to her in nearly episode afterward seem to prove, he’d gone completely straight… well, at least for now, anyway.

Heather Locklear as the evil, scheming Sammy Jo Carrington has only a small role in this volume, limited to testifying against Steven during the custody hearing. She’ll play a larger role in the latter part of the season not covered here.

Michael Nader joins the cast as the love-obsessed Dex Dexter, who is determined to win Alexis’ affection by using a scheme to acquire oil in Canada in their new LexDex Corporation as a way into her checkbook of a heart. His financial interests in Denver-Carrington won’t hurt his campaign either. A few days later, Alexis comes home to find her apartment ransacked and she hires Mark as a live-in bodyguard; which of course is an excuse for knock-down drag-out fight scenes between him and Dex.

Article Author: Jet Gardner

Jet likes to collect books, music, chess sets, and friends. He runs a Gay Worldwide Headline service that is updated constantly, and runs an A-store called Jet's General Store

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